Hunting Washington Forum

Equipment & Gear => Guns and Ammo => Topic started by: ckr on October 29, 2015, 07:31:27 PM

Title: 308 reloading
Post by: ckr on October 29, 2015, 07:31:27 PM: Good evening gents. I am wondering if anyone out there has and experience using IMR 8208xbr in conjunction with 125gr nosler ballistic tips. I am starting to develop a load for kids running a ruger compact. I was hopeing be be around 2500-2600fps. Any help would be great. I have been looking all around and I can't find any info for the 125gr bt

Thanks
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: hollymaster on October 29, 2015, 08:01:58 PM: I've found lighter bullets don't stabilize well. Anything under 150gr gets squirrely. :twocents:
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: ckr on October 29, 2015, 08:11:41 PM: Using which powders? I have been told 4895 is very accurate with the 125bt. The problem is that I have 2lbs of 8208 and want to use them up. I do have a 150 load that shoots good with the 8208 going 2300fps. I was thinking by going to a lighter bullet, the recoil would be even less even at a greater speed
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: AWS on October 30, 2015, 09:47:49 AM: Here's what you need.

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle

Just follow the prompts.

Asking for load data on the internet is not the safest thing to do, a miss key stoke or or just bad memory can cause a serious accident. Always look for a published load, at least it gives you a starting point, not just a guess if it will work.
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: Bill W on October 30, 2015, 10:02:39 AM: I don't think there would be much difference in felt recoil by any more than a pound or two.
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: ckr on October 30, 2015, 12:44:43 PM: Thanks for the input. I have looked at the hodgdon site and they have the starting load at 2800 and change. I think I saw some reduced loads in the hornady book using 125s with the 8208 powder but I have missed place my book. Does anyone have it to look up the info?
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: yorketransport on October 31, 2015, 09:26:20 AM: This is from Hornady #9
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi162.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft260%2Fcollegekidandy%2F17002A62-836F-4B85-B5F9-C9D5ABFA9215.jpg&hash=8482fdc0ce7d54011220927e84cfe4d9e024e88b) (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/collegekidandy/media/17002A62-836F-4B85-B5F9-C9D5ABFA9215.jpg.html)

It's not the 125 NBT, but to get the velocity you want you're going to be sitting at the starting charge anyways.

Andrew
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: 300rum on October 31, 2015, 09:53:13 AM: You need to know your twist rate. Most hunting style rifles in .308 are built to stabilize a 150gr bullet and more then likely you will be better served to stick with a 150gr bullet. Your rifle might stabilize a 125gr bullet just fine but you will need to try it out first. The recoil difference won't be enough to bother with.
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: yorketransport on October 31, 2015, 10:13:23 AM: Quote from: 300rum on October 31, 2015, 09:53:13 AM
You need to know your twist rate. Most hunting style rifles in .308 are built to stabilize a 150gr bullet and more then likely you will be better served to stick with a 150gr bullet. Your rifle might stabilize a 125gr bullet just fine but you will need to try it out first. The recoil difference won't be enough to bother with.

Any factory 308 will stabilize a 125gr bullet. The 308 isn't capable of enough velocity to over spin a 125gr bullet (or any bullet for that matter!) to the point of having significant accuracy issues. Ruger uses a pretty standard 1-10" twist on all of it's .30 caliber rifles which will stabilize any bullet up to about 200 grains in a 308. If I were building a 308 specifically to shoot 125/130gr bullets I might go with a different twist but I doubt that you'd see any real difference.

Andrew
Title: Re: 308 reloading
Post by: ckr on October 31, 2015, 01:35:55 PM: Thanks York for the picture. It's the info I was looking for